2013
Food and Agriculture Research Experiences for Teachers – Expanding the Model Beyond Nebraska (Year 3 of 1265)
Contributor/Checkoff:
Category:
Sustainable Production
Keywords:
(none assigned)
Lead Principal Investigator:
Tiffany Heng-Moss, University of Nebraska
Co-Principal Investigators:
Brian McCornack, Kansas State University
Project Code:
1320-732-7225
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
Institution Funded:
Brief Project Summary:

Unique Keywords:
#education, #soybean educational activities
Information And Results
Project Deliverables

1. Twenty-nine teachers from Nebraska and Kansas will complete the 3-week Summer Soybean Institute (SSI) in 2013.
2. Teachers will develop soybean-based curricula that will be accessible through the mysoybean.org.
3. Teachers participating in the REU will adopt soybean as a model system for teaching the science objectives mandated by their school system, as well as maintain the systems level inquiry approach developed during the SSI.
4. Three hundred and ninety Lincoln Public Schools K-2 grade classrooms (approximately 8,000 students) will continue to use soybean as the model plant system for their curricula.
5. By the completion of this three-year project, over 60 teachers and their students (approximately 1200) will understand and appreciate the role of soybeans and agriculture in their lives, the lives of their families and the impact of soybeans on the state, region and nation.
6. This project will provide the foundation for expanding the soybean in the classroom model to a national audience.
7. The mysoybean.org website will connect teachers involved in the project from Nebraska and Kansas.

Final Project Results

Achieving the objectives
- Key crushers sent senior buyers (decision makers)to the workshop and they initiated trading;
- Company X saw the results and funded scale-up;

Not achieving the objectives
- Company X saw that results and initiated a scale-up, but was taken over by another company which had other priorities;
- Key buyers expressed interest, but import regulations have frustrated sales;
- The soy protein produced had poor tensile strength;
- The leading researcher (or decision maker) no longer works for this organization.
- Over 90% of teacher’s participating in the RET maintained or improved their understanding of inquiry knowledge.
- Over 90% of teacher’s participating in the RET improved their self-efficacy.
- Each teacher developed at least two lessons (total of 150) as a result of the RET.
- One hundred percent of teacher’s participating in the RET improved their understanding of soybean systems (production, processing, and consumption) and the importance of agriculture to their daily lives.
- One hundred percent of the teachers in the RET program are implementing in their classroom at least one lesson using soybean.
- One hundred percent of the teachers interviewed reported that students had a better understanding of the role of agriculture in their lives.

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.